


Jericho

by surestsmile



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surestsmile/pseuds/surestsmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a Jericho. Roxas is his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jericho

Jericho

Axel reads when he's really, _really_ bored. Of course, that was before Roxas came along, and before Demyx came along, and Saix isn't much entertainment when he's busy kissing up to the Superior or tearing his room apart, so Axel reads.

It might have surprised the others to find that he tackles the religious books first, but Axel doesn't feel surprised, after all, religion is all about finding the heart and the soul and where else do you start, really? They're not particularly boring either, and Axel finds it fascinating that mankind has so many beliefs, so many religions, blind faith and love and obedience wrapped up in one (or two, or twelve) leather-bound book. It's almost like how the rest of the Order treated the Superior, except the rules and the commandments and the _lies_ are written in their bodies, their minds, their non-existent hearts.

Axel reads the Bible, reads about the tower of Babel, reads about Jericho, reads about Babylon, and he smirks, though he isn't sure how he feels about the analogies he's drawing between these places and the Order. He knows he's amused at the parallels, high places that are supported by air and nothing else, but he's confused about how it applies to him when clearly, the stories apply to everyone else in the Order.

But that's before he's met Roxas. Roxas, with the blue eyes and the sun-bright hair and the cheerless face and the keyblade, too serious and sullen and grounded, not bothering even to pretend that he was interested in the Superior's dreams and ideals and illusions. Axel finds himself shielding Roxas from the bulk of his own mistakes, making excuses for the younger boy and cupping his hand over Roxas' mouth whenever it appeared that Roxas' talent for pointing out the painfully obvious that everyone was studiously ignoring was going to get himself killed. Even when Roxas shakes off his hand and takes off, Axel thinks he doesn't mind the screaming he gets from the Superior minutes later.

It's funny, but he doesn't see Roxas having his own Babylon either, Roxas is too apathetic to care about the affairs of the heart, metaphorically sailing through the days without a goal in sight. Which suits Axel just fine, because Axel finds himself liking Roxas more than he should, and if they're both standing on solid ground they won't have to worry about falling. Axel doesn't need to worry that Roxas would get his head twisted on backwards like Marluxia or Saix or that Roxas would make him do things he doesn't want to do like how Zexion does with Lexaeus.

They can be their own person without hearts with each other. They can laugh together (or Axel will laugh for Roxas) while they watch the Order build its castle on the clouds, safe and secure in the knowledge that they'll be the ones watching it fall, and not falling with it. Axel will take Roxas' apathetic nature in stride, because Roxas doesn't ask him to change and he won't change for Roxas.

Not ever.

Except, except he doesn't see it. He doesn't see how Roxas chips away at his don't-carish exterior, makes Axel wrap himself around his fingers, all without ruffling a single strand of hair, all without a single thought to Axel himself. Like the soldiers of Jericho, marching and marching day by day, step by step, not knowing what they're doing, but doing it anyway.

He doesn't see it until it's too late. He sees it only when Roxas says the words, "I'm leaving," and then he realizes that Roxas hasn't even tied himself to _him_ , never did, and Axel can't help feeling the threads that _tug_ at him, thin suffocating coils wrapping around a non-existent heart, pulling him down. He can't help it, can't help anything, can't even help _himself_ when he finds that he's suddenly built an existence around Roxas, on Roxas, and Roxas is _leaving_.

And now, and now he's just falling, a faint, crazed echo of who he was, and a tiny voice is laughing somewhere in his head. Laughing at something about the tower of Babel.

About Babylon.

Jericho.


End file.
